Rethinking Positive: Women, Individualism and Collective Consciousness.

Positive is a loaded word. It has been co-opted and nearly made meaningless, much like the word empowerment. Being positive is often framed within the tenet of new-age jargon that goes something like, “You have none but yourself to blame if bad things happen to you” and is used to explain why we are not all rich, thin, happy, and healthy. Apparently, this is a result of not being engaged in “positive” thinking, right? Ever wonder why those who tout “it's all a state of mind” and can prove it by their own success are mostly rich white men and a few token trophy women? Too often it becomes a trap for women to conform to the male-centered model of power and wealth at the expense of others. Certainly it is void of any political let alone feminist analysis. Nothing new or positive about it, it is the same old song and dance in shiny new packaging. So when Rain and Thunder decided to do their Positive Issue, I felt a twinge of uncertainty. The idea of rolling out something even containing the word “positive” while the present state of the world moves maddeningly in a different direction seemed a fool's quest at best. I didn't want to be serving up the usual new-age bitter pill of victim blaming disguised as a sugar-coated enlightened philosophy. But Rain and Thunder is far from promoting that. The wimmin behind it are thoughtful, intelligent, passionate feminists, who know that great understanding and change can occur when when one brings to bear sharp political feminist analysis to any subject. The common refrain “we each chose this life so our soul could learn a lesson”, flaunted as the be-all and end-all of being positive, can no longer hold up.

So amidst all this, where does one begin? I have had the privilege of some recent discussions about individualism vs collective mass movement-building as to where and how we must move forward. A friend of mine asserts that the time for individualism needs to fall away, especially for radical feminists. That it is a dead-end in and of itself and keeps us disconnected from each other. On the other hand most of us are individualistic in our focus, like it or not. That is, we start almost always with ourselves and then move outward. Although I am still making sense of what this may mean, I for now believe that these two seemingly disparate ideas may for a time have to go hand-in-hand. For the present, we live in a male dominated society that is overly focused on our individual needs and desires. Our culture is so saturated with this individualism that many may even believe it is innate to our nature. Even as I write these words, the question of it stays with me and I truly do not have an answer, just the question. Whether this individualistic focus is intrinsic to our very characters or a clever construction of heteropatriarchy, it is a big and possibly erroneous leap to ask that we turn it completely off in favor of a purely collective consciousness. I am not dismissing the importance of collective consciousness. It has been a hallmark of revolutionary feminist thought and action. Not so long ago, during the Second Wave, consciousness-raising groups bridged the gap between the individual and the understanding of the struggles of women as a class. Collective thinking may be wholly necessary for the mass movement-building needed if we wish to rescue ourselves, each other, and the planet from certain destruction. But it will probably take a long time to unfetter ourselves from the “me first” kind of thinking that has prevailed in this male-dominated, hetero-centric, warlike culture for the last 5,000 years.

This should not be taken as a sign of resignation, quite the contrary. I submit it as a challenge to all of us. I am recalling Merlin Stone's When God Was A Woman and Marija Gimbutus's The Language Of The Goddess. In these works both authors, through careful and arduous research, document that there was a time when we lived and acted more collectively. That the needs of all were considered along with or perhaps even above those of the individual. Both scholars assert that war and wanton destruction were almost unheard of and that peace and prosperity were abundant. So there was a time when not only did harmony prevail, but women and girls were glorified and respected and had true agency.. Imagine for a moment not living in fear for your very body. The fact that it did happen means it can happen again. That is the vision I hold and believe in even while mired in a culture that tells me not only is it the individual that matters, but truly it is only the individual men that can have any real meaning. They grant meaning to everyone and everything else. Yet for now we must begin where we are. For the memory of that long ago past has almost been forgotten. But we can't let it end there. Hope has to start with some tiny spark in the depths of the person, it is what often drives us to do something. But we then need to carry it forward with others.

Yes, as women it is good to focus on our personal lives, health, and happiness, but that is not the stopping point, it is merely the leaping off point. And I would also say that in no way should we wait until we have our own stuff all sorted out before we engage in collective change making and mass movement building. This brings it back to the idea of individual and collective work going hand-in-hand. I also must acknowledge that what this looks like for every woman will be different. The idea of individual need must be considered within a larger social-political context. Political and economic climate of where a women lives, whether her nation is at war and the overall status of women in her immediate environment are reflected in social attitudes concerning race, class, age, physical ability, economic class, and sexual orientation All these factors come to bear on a women's ability to effect change in her own and other's lives and her community. This is where the challenge of stepping beyond the individual framework/model must come into play. Moving beyond ourselves involves a lot of unlearning. Challenging privilege and sharing resources for those that have them means a willingness on our part to acknowledge and unravel the tapestry that has been woven in the images of the great white father. It is not easy. Often it is painful and frightening to do this. I know too well the struggle of shifting away from those false comforts that have been afforded me in society. My upbringing has been one of capitalism being the way and individualism rules which means “to each his own.” I have railed and resisted at times because I believe we can do better and that everyone deserves better. Maybe this is the true essence of being positive. However difficult and even insurmountable it may seem, these paradigm shifts are essential if we are going to create any lasting change. Even for those of us who don't have much, we can do something beyond ourselves to feed the collective life.

Positive has to take on a new meaning for women. We need to take back this word and as Mary Daly might have considered and encouraged, reverse it on those who have twisted it into a meaningless act of self-affirmation of male superiority. It is not foolish for we as feminists to believe that individuals can come together and create a world renewed. It will not magically happen, that is where the new-age “if you just believe it will happen” gets us stuck. It will take persistent and grueling hard work. It will not be magical, but it will take spark, vision, and courage. We will need thinkers and doers of all experiences and abilities. We will need imaginings of something different and new stories to tell the next generations coming-up. What we have now keeps us out of the truly powerful meaning of what it might mean to be positive. The greatest individuals in history's memory would have us believe that the “great” men and very few women did it all on their own. But the much older and wiser memory of herstory would reveal that they did not do it alone. They relied upon a great mass of people to help move things along. And many, many women have been the driving sustaining force of any great change. We need not be fooled into thinking that the stories we are presently told are the only ones that are the true version of reality. I am positive that there are many yet still unheard, but in our psyches we know them. This is probably the crux of what being truly positive is about. The ability to imagine and dream of freedom, not just for one, but for all. That is what will help us each move our individual selves into a mass movement for change.